Obtaining the effective number of reinforcements progressively inserted and optimized to reduce the strain energy of cantilever plates with a different relationship between height and length

Abstract

To achieve more efficient structures, research into material properties is important in mechanical designs. The anisotropy of fiber composites is increasingly being exploited. This is particularly true for curved and continuous composites. The position and orientation of the filaments have a major influence on mechanical properties. So, the application of these fibers at specific paths is very important to obtain excellent structures. When developing components for high-performance applications, it is necessary to use optimization methods to find the best reinforcement paths. To achieve high efficiency, it is necessary to reduce the volume of the reinforcements to improve the strength-to-weight ratio. This reduction not only directly reduces the mass, but also decreases manufacturing costs. The present work aims to gradually add reinforcements to carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs). It observes the exact number of fibers required to achieve the greatest possible reduction in strain energy. The results prove that the use of more reinforcements than ideal is unnecessary because it increases the volume of reinforcements but doesn’t improve the properties. Optimization is achieved by parameterizing B-splines using sequential linear programming (SLP). Four cases analyzed concern a cantilevered plate. A force is applied to the free edge, causing bending. The boundary conditions are identical, and only the length of the plate changes. The strain is plotted to observe the strain distribution. Then, the results show that adding three to four reinforcements can reduce the strain energy by 92.6% to 98.0% compared to a structure without reinforcements.